View clinical trials related to Cancer of the Larynx.
Filter by:For advanced head and neck cancer, combined radiation and chemotherapy prevents recurrences and for many patients, improves survival. While combined cisplatin and radiation or cetuximab and radiation is more effective than radiation alone, approximately 50% of these patients will still recur. A more aggressive approach may be needed for these patients to prevent recurrence and death. The strategy of using multiple chemotherapy drugs with radiation given twice a day has been tested at Mount Sinai and University of Chicago. Approximately 80% of patients are cured with this strategy. While cure rates are higher than standard chemotherapy and radiation and the treatment is tolerable, side effects during treatment are common. We propose replacing a chemotherapy drug with a less toxic, targeted therapy called cetuximab. Our goal is to reduce toxicity while maintaining or improving cure rates for these patients.
The combined use of chemotherapeutic drugs with radiation has proven to be effective in improving overall survival and local control among patients with locally advanced head and neck cancer. Induction chemotherapy given before receiving local treatment has been shown to reduce the rate of distant failure. Many drugs have been found to prevent tumor cells from growing or dividing, although it has yet to be determined which agent, or specific combination of agents, is most effective in treating head and neck cancer. Docetaxel is a drug which has been reported to show promising activity in Phase II head and neck cancer studies. Therefore, the purpose of this trial is to compare the effectiveness of induction chemotherapy followed by chemoradiotherapy versus the same chemoradiotherapy alone in patients with locally advanced head and neck cancer.